What time do you let your chickens out?

[Dixiedoodle]

I let mine girls out around 7 am.. This is where that 4sq ft x 1 chicken (or more) of coop floor space is great.. Each night, I fill all the feeders and make sure the waterer is clean and full and I throw a handful of premium birdseed down on the floor for them to scratch thru.. If I am leaving earlier, I will open them up earlier but some are still on the roost..... I think it has to do w/ routine more than anything.. like most animals== they thrive on routine.

 

[Mrs. K]

I have fort knox too, (finally) I only close the pop up door in extreme cold in the dead of winter.

I often let mine free range in the day, and generally get down there sometime in the morning, and let them out and then close them up in the run late afternoon, and early evening.

 

[floridachickhatcher]

In late Spring and Summer we let our chickens out at Daylight but come Late Fall and Winter then they are let out as soon as it has warmed up which is about 10AM

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

I let my chickens out no earlier than 7 am when we have a rooster to be nice to our neighbors.

When we just have hens, I let them out at daybreak.

 

[JanetR]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I was worried that the chickens would get stressed if they couldn't get out as soon as it got light.

 

[poseygrace]

I don't let mine out till 7:30 or 8, because I am a late riser. (Night Owl!) Their coop is big and they don't seem to mind. I have a couple of sleepy heads that drift out at 8:30 or 9. Hilarious!

 

[Nikitaa]

I realise this thread is slightly old but I'm only just starting out with chickens and have been wondering about what times to let them out for a while. I set an alarm to wake me so I get up to let them out. Or else I'd sleep till noon (I'm a teenager) and that isn't fair to them. So at the moment its anywhere between 7-8.

Also, what I'm most curious about is how would late starts to the day for them effect their egg laying?

 

[Kittyf]

Ours stay in their rather large coop until the early layer lays, sometimes as late as 10 or even noon. The coop get first light every day as it faces east. Their run is some distance from the coop, so they all eagerly scurry to the run when I open the coop door. When they want to go back to lay - usually about 1pm - they let me know and I open the coop door and run gate and they make a beeline for the nestboxes. Then they go back to the run until sundown, when I open the gates again and they march back to the coop. They are pretty orderly about the whole routine.

Kate

 

[remuda1]

I let mine out of the coop at about 6:30 in the morning. I used to let them out to free range at that time too until I lost a hen and then a rooster to a fox or coyote. Now they come out of the coop
At 6:30 but don't come out of the run until about 10:00. Thankfully, I haven't lost one since I started this.

 

[ButchGood]

The door to the run is always open. They are out before dawn. I let them out of the run every morning at sunrise, And they are always quite eager to get to the range.